Author: Anthony Starkins

Wry & Dry #9-25 Stagflation? Glasgow and Chairman Dan. Meanwhile, in Canada…

Rather like a nervous gambler who bet the house and is waiting for the Tattslotto numbers to drop on a Saturday night, Treasurer Grim Jim waited at his open office window for Wendy-the-carrier-pigeon to bring the GDP news from the Bureau of Statistics.

Grim Jim was relieved as he unfurled the paper from Wendy’s leg, and read a barely positive figure of 0.2% for the June quarter. “Still, better than a negative,” he muttered. Now, the task was to claim credit. Which, as a politician, he did.

Wry & Dry #7-25 Indoor Nuremberg rally. Dutton’s one-trick. A worse state?

Sleepy Joe did his best to stupefy an unstupefiable crowd. It was as though he was giving the eulogy at his own funeral. All the achievements, success and stories. After three hours, people looked at their watches and only 30 minutes had passed. It was another 20 minutes before a relieved crowd were able to wave him into retirement. Rather like a family watching the hearse driving off from the funeral service.

Wry & Dry #6-25 Testy Teals. Invade Russia? Really? Gonski cash went goneski.

An inconvenient truth of being a politician is that one’s daily bread depends on others. Sometimes it’s not the wicked whim of the voters; it’s the fickled finger of the Electoral Commission.

Y’see, the AEC not only runs elections, it also decides electorate boundaries. Which is why a sandpit fight has developed within a loosely-allied, single-issue political collective called Teals.

Wry & Dry #3-25 “Kamala, Kamala…” No speak English. “We’ll always have Paris”

Kamala Harris has four things going for her: She’s black, she’s female, and she’s not the Trumpster. And that may be enough, because of Big Mo.

Big Mo is not Merv Hughes, that former Australian fast bowler with a moustache denser than the Amazon rainforest, but ‘Momentum’. This group behavioural theory is now alive in Democrat land. Ms. Harris has… Big Momentum!

Wry & Dry #2-25 Übermensch. “I’m shocked, shocked…” “And now, the end is near…”

Cartoon of shooter from attempted assassination of Trump

If ever the phrase “a week is a long time in politics” was apt it was this week. The indifferent Brits elected a government that received just 35% of the vote, the French effectively elected nobody to govern, and Jill Biden picked up the phone and ordered the removalists.

And, weirdly, surviving an assassination attempt makes a person a hero. Suddenly, the Trumpster is just that. A colourful blend of Horatio at the bridge, the 300 Spartans at Thermopylae, Jean Valjean at the barricade. All because the bullet missed.

Wry & Dry #1-25 International year of elections. Open all hours. New political party.

As Readers pass the halfway point of 2024, they know it was always going to be a momentous year. And not because of the arcane controversy about the attractiveness of the Australian Olympic Team’s opening ceremony uniform.
2024 will be remembered for being an election year across the globe. When democracy is put to the test. And fails. But dishonesty succeeds.
This week, Wry & Dry will have a slight election bias, pondering the US (in New York, he watched peak senility battle peak Pinocchio), UK (he now finds himself, under a brolly, to guard against the landslide), France (M Macron has oeuf all over his visage) and Iran (the voting first round had a turnout of 40% – the lowest since the 1979 revolution).

Wry & Dry #43-24 Julian who? Nuclear power poll. Frexit?

Saipan is an island in the western Pacific from where, in 1945, the Americans sent a B29 bomber to deliver to Japan an atomic bomb. That same island is from where this week the Americans sent a private jet to deliver to Australia a media atomic bomb. Julian who?

In preparation, Wry & Dry has battened down the hatches. Raised the drawbridge. Lowered the portcullis. And, in fact, has left the country (for a short time).

Wry & Dry #42-24 Dutton’s Rubicon. UK election: leaders last. Real estate opportunities.

It’s the biggest political move since Julius Caesar crossed the Rubicon in 49 BC. And Readers know how that ended.

Uncle Fester Dutton cast the die with his announcement of seven sites for nuclear power plants. It has a sort of “built it and they will come” ring about it. Except his is: “announce it and they will vote for it.”

Err, perhaps some details are missing.

Wry & Dry #41-24 Dishonours. The Big Trip. Sins of the son.

Not since Roman Emperor Caligula appointed his horse Incitatus as a consul has a political appointment turned to such high farce.

It would not have escaped Readers’ attention that the former Chairman of the People’s Republic of Victoria has been appointed to the highest honour of Companion of the Order of Australia.

Wry & Dry #40-24 The lesser of two weevils. Al Capone. Bad dream.

With each passing hour, it is becoming clearer that voters in the US have an awful decision to make on the first Tuesday after the first Monday in November.
A corrupt, narcissistic, megalomanial, neo-Fascist, vengeful, sociopathic populist felon; or
A creaky, well-meaning, stubborn, weak, peri-demential, ideologue.

Wry & Dry #36 FY-24 From the Murray to… “That would be the Euphrates”. Rats.

In the most flagrant breach of responsible government since that which caused then PM Whitlam to give Federal Treasurer Jim Cairns the DCM in 1975, Victorian Premier Allen has not given state Treasurer Tim Pallas the DCM.

And in abject bovine indifference, the financial media chewed the cud spewed out by the government’s PR machine and effectively said “Tut, tut. Must do better.”

Even the state opposition leader (err, bowler’s name?) couldn’t bring himself to ask for the head of Pallas to be impaled on a spike at the city gates.

Wry & Dry #35-24. Budget spin-time. Government grants meets Hitler youth. Covid responsibility.

It only comes once a year: budget spin time. Spinners opening at either end.

At the Victorian end, the spin will be in the hands of the well upholstered treasurer of Victoria, who has to somehow explain what he did with the money. Over the last 10 years.
At the Canberra end, the spin will alternate between Grim Jim and Albo (wearing a hi-vis vest, instead of the traditional creams).

WRY & DRY #34 FY-24. Invade, but not yet. Power. Local taxes.

Last week, Albo went back to the 1950s to build an Australian manufacturing sector to compete with… China. This week, Defence Minister Marles went forward to the 2030s with a massive re-armament programme to compete against… China.

Some $50 billion of new dosh over the next decade will be spent on new toys. But almost no new serious capability will be delivered for at least 10 years.

Albo has been on the phone to Emperor Eleven to ask if China will hold off invading until 2035.

Wry & Dry #33 FY-24. Back to the Future. Naked opportunism. Exempt me from 30% super tax.

Yesterday, Albo hopped into his flux-capacitor driven DeLorean and flew Australia back to the 1950s. Where it will convert into an FJ Holden world of tariffs and high costs.

Albo’s uncosted ‘Future Made in Australia policy’ dwarfed last week’s heady announcement of $1 billion of we-the-taxpayers’ money going to the feel-good cause of manufacturing solar panels. This is “No Australian child will ever live in poverty” (they still do) revisited, touched with “We will plant one billion trees” (we didn’t).

Wry & Dry #32 FY-24. Bumper post-Easter issue.

Robert Kennedy is an American environmental lawyer who promotes anti-vaccination misinformation and public health conspiracies. With an energetic blend of left-wing idealism and right-wing conspiracy theories, in his own mind he is the perfect person to challenge Sleepy Joe and the Trumpster for leadership of the free world. Which he has done.

His many university degrees will not help him as much as his name. Insert a middle initial, add a post-nominal indulgence and plain Robert Kennedy becomes Robert F. Kennedy Junior. He is a (cue drum-roll)… ‘Kennedy’.

Wry & Dry #31 FY-24 Where 88% is a fail. Where’s Dan? Useful idiot.

Tsar Vlad threw himself at the feet of his subjects. And begged to be re-elected for the 5th time. To make it easier for his subjects to vote for him, he wisely banned all opposition parties.

Under those circumstances, he really should have got at least 100% of the vote. So, an 88% result is a dismal failure.

Wry & Dry #30 FY-24 AUKUS. Sleepy Joe goes all in. Feeding the chooks.

The sound of the unwrapping of the French-equivalent-of-Ikea packaging in Adelaide should have commenced this year.

And Croesus Turnbull probably would have been there. With a bottle of cheap French champagne on hand, he would have turned the first Allen key to piece together the first of the French- designed submarines for the Royal Australian Navy.

Wry & Dry #29 of FY-24. Mercy Rule. By-elections. Military unintelligence.

The USA gave the world the ‘mercy rule’. This is where in a two-competitor sport, the game will end earlier than the prescribed endpoint because one competitor has a very large and presumably insurmountable lead.

Last weekend the authoritative New York Times/Siena College Poll had the Trumpster leading Sleepy Joe by 48% to 43%. It’s now time for Sleepy Joe to apply the mercy rule. And give himself the DCM.

Wry & Dry #28 of FY-24. Gender Equality. Nuclear. Spies.

The rest of the world: focused on Gaza, Ukraine and/or the Trumpster’s latest rambling monologue to bovine masses.

The Australian media: transfixed by the results of the most read survey since Publius Sulpicius Quirinius carried out a census in Judea in 6 AD. That survey (not the one by Quirinius) was by the Workplace Gender Equality Agency (WGEA). It’s a shocker.

Wry & Dry #27 of FY-24. Navalny. Border dogs. Barnaby.

The world was distracted by the Trumpster’s court-imposed penalty, the Super Bowl and the mess in Gaza. Then the murder of Aleksei Navalny awoke the world to the evil that is Tsar Vlad. At least for a short time.

The circumvolutive explanation of Navalny’s death from ‘sudden death syndrome’ would be laughable if it didn’t turn back the clock to the awful era of Stalin.

Wry & Dry #25 of FY-24. Swiftie. Communicator. Holding Your Breath.

Wry & Dry’s man in Mar-a-Lago reports that the Trumpster and his MAGA acolytes now believe that his enemy is not Sleepy Joe. Or Nikki Haley. But, in fact, Taylor Swift.

Not that Ms. Swift has gone out of her way to get under his skin, as Ms. Haley has done. All Ms. Swift has done is be more popular than he.

Wry & Dry #24 of FY-24. Brainless and invertebrate. “Keep it up-vibe…” Trusts’ tax.

It’s obvious. The Prime Minister doesn’t have a spine. And the Leader of the Opposition doesn’t have a brain.

If Readers hadn’t already drawn this conclusion before spending the summer swimming in the pristine waters of Port Phillip Bay or safely in Sydney Harbour, then the new year’s emissions of cant and idiocy from these two icons of incompetence will have settled any doubt.

Wry & Dry #23 FY-24. Bumper Christmas Issue

Wry & Dry needs to remind himself, and perhaps some Readers, of the major global events of 2023:

Jacinda Ardern, the Queen of Woke and Incompetence, gave herself the DCM

In an outcome that surprised the world, Emperor Eleven was unanimously re-elected as President of China

In a bullet fired into Tsar Vlad’s foot by Tsar Vlad, Finland became the 31st member of NATO.

Wry & Dry #22 FY-24. Emeritus Chairman Dan’s resume. Hamas: making money. GDP per capita falls.

It was feeding time at the media zoo on Wednesday. Hot on the heels of the PISA report showing that 26% of Victorian 15-year-olds’ educational proficiency was too low “to enable them to participate effectively and productively in life,” the long-awaited Ombudsman’s report into the Victorian public service under Emeritus Chairman Dan Andrews was fed to the salivating media mouths.

There was more than enough for indigestion. Victoria’s public service, the Ombudsman’s massive report said, is “ruled at the highest level by a culture of fear.” No subtlety there.

Wry & Dry #21 FY-24. Heaven: a busy week. Dubai: COP that. US: Haley’s comet.

It’s been a busy week at the Members’ Entrance to the pearly gates to heaven.

On Tuesday Charlie Munger arrived in a limmo longer than a bus. Charlie was Warren Buffett’s conservative investment alter ego. He arrived and immediately began arguing with St Peter about heaven’s recent investments (remembering that time doesn’t matter in heaven): “That St Peter’s Basilica property development in Rome was a waste of money.”

Wry & Dry #20 FY-24: Optus: J’Accuse …! Inflation. Netherlands.

It took an hour for Marie Antionette to be taken from her cell to the Place de la Révolution. On the way to the guillotine, she was jeered and abused by the Parisienne Mob. The Mob wanted a head on a platter. And it got it.

More recently, it took three days for Optus CEO Kelly Bayer Rosmarin to go from appearing before a Senate Committee to self-decapitation.

Wry & Dry #19 FY-24: Albo: What. Me worry? UK: sinking ship. Israel: maths.

Political opinion polls published on Monday screamed gloom for Albo. His preferred PM rating had fallen to 40% from 47%.

In response, Albo gave the Alfred E Neuman comment. Well, he actually didn’t say it. He didn’t need to: the same poll showed the Coalition’s primary support falling to 30%. Albo will be soundly sleeping; albeit in the pointy end of a Qantas A380.

Wry & Dry #18 FY-24: China: Echo Wall. Epidemics: RDS. Iran.

The news last week that former PM Keating had lost it completely with a recurrence of RDS was only a modest surprise. The bad news this week is that RDS is spreading.

Readers will recall that former PM Scott Morrison hailed his 2019 election victory as a miracle, for which he himself was entirely responsible. Clearly hoping to repeat the miracle in the epicentre of miracles, Morrison flew into Israel over the weekend.

Wry & Dry #17 FY-24: China. Keating. Anti-Semitism.

Some weeks ago, Wry & Dry suggested that the incoming head of the Productivity Commission Ms. Michelle Wood might get the DCM before starting her job. Her then sin was proposing an inheritance tax.

Wry & Dry mused then that perhaps she suffered from RDS. Proposing an inheritance tax certainly got the headlines.

But then on Wednesday, she again put her head above the parapet.

Wry & Dry #16 FY-24: Trumpster: diary. Anti-Semitism mask. Albo’s straining belt buckle.

Saturday: Florida. Played golf with some champion golfers. An Irish fella called McIlroy, a chick from South Korea, Jin Young Ko and a bloke named Tiger something. I WON!

Sunday: New Hampshire. Spoke at a rally. Told them “I don’t mind being Nelson Mandela.” I am willing to GO TO JAIL to defend democracy. Mandela was a patriot, like me. India should be proud of him.

Monday…

WRY & DRY #15 FY-24: Voice over. Sleepy Joe’s great speech. Never mess with a nun.

The Voice debacle gave rise to claims and counter claims that would make a lawyer richer than Croesus. The most risible was from journalists, newspaper-letter-writers and deniers who blamed the loss on Opposition Leader Peter Dutton.

Really? Dutton would be pleased to claim he single-handedly defeated a campaign backed by the full forces of the government, the ACTU, an overwhelming casket of cash, the major churches, large companies, universities, the major sporting codes, major industry superannuation funds and… Alan Joyce. SuperDutton? Yeah. Nuh.

Wry & Dry #14 FY-24: Yes/No/Maybe. Gaza: history and thoughts. US: constipated.

The massacre and kidnappings of Israelis by Hamas terrorists that occurred just north of the Gaza Strip have rightly sickened most of the world. And the self-righteous triumphalism by Australian anti-Semites has ripped the cover off their latent hatred.

Wry & Dry writes of this subject carefully. And asks Readers to also read carefully.

Wry & Dry #13 FY-24: Disaster: Chairman Dan’s DCM. Trumpster the fraudster. PwC.

In a DCM-move that surprised many, Chairman Dan gave himself the DCM on Tuesday. This is a disaster of great magnitude.

Cartoonists all over Australia have lost a subject that yielded the Everest of political satire and ridicule. They feasted on the opportunity provided by arguably the most hated politician since Julius Caesar, whose DCM, unlike Chairman Dan’s, was not self-inflicted and caused by 27 knife wounds from six grumpy conspirators.

Emboldened by his own outstanding oratory and aided by an Opposition as weak as the Wallabies and as divided as post-war Germany, a fawning media and an upper house cross bench that were easily bought, he bestrode the political world like a colossus.

Wry & Dry #12 FY-24: Albo channels Sir Humphrey. Crisis. What crisis? Net-zero delayed.

“No Minister, I beg you,” replies Sir Humphrey. “A basic rule of government is never look into anything you don’t have to, and never set up an inquiry unless you know in advance what its findings will be.”

And with this exemplar of responsible government at the forefront of his mind, Albo has set up an inquiry into Covid that is without teeth, ears and eyes.

WRY & DRY #11 FY-24: Inheritance tax? Q just won’t go away. Deja vu all over again.

In a media debut up there with Moses publishing the Ten Commandments, the incoming Productivity Commissioner on Monday called for the re-introduction of inheritance taxes. Ms. Danielle Wood got the gig only last week.

Ms. Wood could make history. Her role doesn’t commence until November, and she could get the DCM two months before starting her job. In fact, to give herself even more of the attention she clearly craves, she should give herself the DCM.

Wry & Dry #10 FY-24: Yes, Alan. Negative satisfaction. GDP up.

The word ‘Qantas’ received more bad media mentions last week than Chairman Dan has in a year. How did the Yes, Alan chairman of Qantas respond?

Well, Richard Goyder hastened to How To Keep My Job as Chairman In A Crisis For Dummies, a bright yellow tome that sits on the bookshelf of most listed company chairpeople. And ripped open the Panic Envelope glued on the inside front cover.

Wry & Dry #8 FY-24: 40 years in the desert. Photo of the Year. No Russian mushrooms.

Moses had 40 years of wandering around the Sinai desert. His budget had red ink as far as the Red Sea, as demands upon his goatskin purse became larger. An ageing population, shrinking revenue base from date and palm sales, the need for increased defence spending to counter Egypt, that nearby wannabe world power, and his ballooning NDIS costs all caused grief.

But, with the help of manna from heaven, after those 40 years he somehow led the Hebrews to the land of milk and honey.

Wry & Dry #7 FY-24. “No child will live in poverty.” Trumpster the mobster. VinFast what?

When the Indians are circling your wagon, the lessons of Politics 101 are clear. Divert attention away from the Indians until the cavalry arrives. What better diversion than a big, ‘nation building’ policy.

Former PM Bob Hawke was a master at this. Readers will remember either of “no Australian child will live in poverty” and/or “we will plant one billion trees.”

Wry & Dry #5 FY-24. Trumpster smashes own record. Phoenix Team. US credit downgrade.

What proud citizen of the USA would not want a president who admitted to a business relationship with a porn start? Really, it’s about free speech. And free trade.

Or one whose high intellect and sense of history meant that building a personal library of really historic documents was really understandable.

And now, conspiracy. Really? What’s the fuss? Who in politics hasn’t conspired before, during or after office?

Wry & Dry #1, FY-24: Some of it was cricket. Foster country. Headhunters.

It is a truth universally acknowledged that a batsman who is unhappy with the method of his dismissal will cry that it wasn’t “in the spirit of the game.”

And so it came to pass that in a recent cricket Test match, English batsman Bairstow was silly enough to leave his crease when the ball was still in play. He was correctly dismissed (“stumped”).

An outburst of outrage not seen at Lord’s since the Great Pimm’s Shortfall Crisis of 1926 then arose.

Wry & Dry #34: Sleepy Joe’s real reason for not coming. How to paint a debt ceiling. Cane toads?

Sleepy Joe has decided to cancel his trip to have gumnut tea and a lamington with Albo. His acolytes speak of the need to negotiate the raising of America’s ‘debt ceiling’. Nuh.

The real reason is the worry that Sleepy Joe might fall victim of the food on the Jetstar flight to Sydney.  And return to the US in a more horizontal position than is usually found on Jetstar. Then Armageddon: Kamala Harris would get the gig in the White House, at which she has already been measuring up curtains. 

Wry & Dry #14: Bumper issue. Outlasting a lettuce. Budget? Smudge it. Back to the future.

The last two weeks have unarguably been the UK’s biggest unforced humiliation since Suez. After the UK gilt market and sterling collapsed, she dumped her ideological newbie Chancellor of the Exchequer; agreed to overturn polices she backed days earlier; and fired her Home Secretary (is there an Away Secretary?). It was only then that her parliamentary colleagues began to wake up from their afternoon snoozes at their St James’ clubs. And looked at the latest polls.

Wry & Dry #12: Time to invade. Football club follies. Turning.

Imagine that you are the Chairman of a struggling inner-suburban football club. The club concerned has a proud history. Sadly, in recent times it has fallen on ‘ardship, which a previous administration had attempted to overcome by injecting its players with cocktails not heard of in the best bar at the Ritz Carlton.

Small business owners: a successful wealth management case study

A small business owner and his or her partner face a unique financial challenge: their personal wealth management issues are woven into their business. Having served such clients for more than 22 years, we know that this integration presents both challenges and opportunities.